Page 68 of A Matter of Murder

“Your story about the service door closing and not reopening for you didn’t sit well with me. There is a way to latch the door so it won’t open from the inside, but one can’t deploy it from inside the corridor.”

“Someone intentionally locked us in,” Lizzie said, adjusting her grip on Guy. She had already suspected as much, but it still unsettled her to hear her theory confirmed. “Why?

“I’m hoping you can tell me.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea!”

But of course, she was thinking about Lady Catherine. Lady Catherine, who’d threatened Lizzie in London and who knew she was at Netherfield Park. Lady Catherine, who was as wily as they come and had gotten the jump on her multiple times.

Could she be here, in Netherfield Park? But how?

“I tried to get away all day to check the east wing,” Sally admitted. “But with so many people in the house, and a housekeeper always wanting to know what I am up to, it was impossible. So I left that night, but waited until Mr. Grigson had gone to bed, and then I came back.”

“How did you get in?” Lizzie asked.

Sally rolled her eyes. “I have a key. No one asked for it back after Mrs. Bingley died.”

“So you came in and went into the east wing and had a look around? In the dark? You could have fallen. Or set the house on fire again.”

“Do give me a little more credit than that. But yes, I had to see if there were signs of the house being disturbed.”

“And were there?” Lizzie could scarcely breathe.

“It was too difficult to say,” Sally said. “But I’m certain of it now.”

“How?”

“Apart from the fact that your dog was in a closed room on the second floor? This.”

Sally stood before the window, which was framed with shelves and boasted a window seat beneath the ledge that Lizzie would have coveted, under different circumstances. Lizzie looked down to see what Sally was indicating.

A large chunk of stone was missing from the outside facade, right below the windowsill. Lizzie could see a crack between the window frame and the stone wall, the summer sun slipping in. Scrape marks on the surrounding stone and splinters from the frame betrayed that the damage had been intentional.

Lizzie looked down.

Below them was the edge of the drive, where she and Darcy had stood just three days earlier, moments before a chunk of masonry had nearly caved in their skulls.

“Oh.” Lizzie said, feeling faint. “Darcy was right.”

“About what?”

“He said...” Lizzie swallowed, her mouth dry all of a sudden. She wished he were there. “He said he saw movement in the window, but he thought it was a trick of the light. If someone was here, and they purposefully loosened the stone...”

She relived the moment of the accident—no, not an accident. Darcy’s hard shove and the rain of debris, and the sharp thud of the masonry making impact with the ground. “This is all my fault.”

Sally looked at her with genuine surprise. “What are you talking about?”

But Lizzie couldn’t—didn’t—have the time to explain Lady Catherine and her letters. “Do you have any idea who has been coming up here?”

“No,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s one of your lot. Whoever it was, they were able to move very carefully. And they know a bit more about this house than I would have thought.”

Something in Sally’s tone made Lizzie pause. “What do you mean? What’s significant about this room, other than Honoria liking it?”

Sally closed her eyes. When her response came, it was so quiet that Lizzie almost didn’t hear it. “Because... this is where she hid her silver.”

Before Lizzie had a chance to react, Sally nudged her away from the window seat and knelt before it. Reaching under the tip of the seat, she felt round for something. Lizzie heard the soft snick of a latch, and then the top of the seat swung open on hidden hinges that were as silent as a secret. Lizzie gasped and stepped forward, looking down into the dark hiding space.

Sally made a surprised noise. “Now, that’s not what I expected.”